The present invention relates to document feeding along a document feed path, and is particularly directed to a document feeder for feeding a document along a document feed path in a document processing system such as a bank check processing system.
Many different types of document feeder apparatus are known. Some known document feeder apparatus include an advance/retard mechanism which is typically either a pair of belts which are spring loaded against each other or a pair of rollers which are spring loaded against each other. During proper operation of the advance/retard mechanism, misfeeding of documents and damage to documents being fed are avoided. Due to normal wear and tear, the contact surfaces of the pair of belts or the contact surfaces of the pair of rollers become contaminated. The advance/retard mechanism may not operate properly when the contact surfaces of the belts or the contact surfaces of the rollers become contaminated. When the advance/retard mechanism is not operating properly, a fault condition such as a double document feed condition may result.